


i love you, isn't that the worst thing you've ever heard?

by medeas



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: F/M, anyway i wrote this after finishing fleabag if that tells you anything! i'm a wreck, comic clintnat but it's not set in a specific period so can be read as whatever, rating is just bc of language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:41:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24982513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/medeas/pseuds/medeas
Summary: It’s not the thing he wants to say. It’s still brutal and terrible and the worst thing Natasha has ever heard.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	i love you, isn't that the worst thing you've ever heard?

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from 'Cruel Summer' by Taylor Swift, except I changed one word.

Clint stumbles into their shared safe house. It’s late and his pupils are dilated, but what catches Natasha's attention is the fact that he is bleeding. The side of his face is streaked with red, streams of it still pouring down. It’s getting all over the carpeted floor. “Bathroom,” Natasha says, already thinking about the clean-up they’ll have to do the next day. Her words are an order yet she drags him behind her until they reach the bathroom. Clint sits atop the toilet, head in hands. Natasha crouches down across from him once she grabs their medical kit, then swats his hands away so she can work.

She does not ask any questions. Not because she can’t but because she does not need to. She takes one look at Clint’s face and knows that he doesn’t want to talk about it. He is electing to stew in silence. This means that his current state is because of something relatively unimportant to the grand scheme of things. It most likely involves a pub, the wrong thing said at the wrong time. They don’t keep secrets when it counts. They can’t afford to. Except- 

“‘Tasha.” He only calls her that when he’s about to lay himself bare, a body on an operating table.

“Don’t,” she says, because he’s had a few too many drinks and just like when it comes to his injuries, she doesn’t need to know the details. 

“I-” It’s a secret even to his own goddamn mouth. Natasha knows the feeling too well, the urge to take what the world has given you and spit everything back out again. This does not mean that she understands it. Knowing and understanding something are two very different things. Natasha has been trained to know how things work, how _people_ work. She was not trained to comprehend the intricacies of them all. 

“I said don’t, Clint.” Maybe it is the sound of his own name that gets to him, the cocky bastard, because he allows Natasha to continue bandaging him up in silence. She can tell he is under the influence because he is not participating in the dance they do every single time; he isn’t insisting that he is fine or trying to bandage himself up unsuccessfully and without her help. Natasha expects that at this rate she’ll be finished quite sooner than if Clint were sober and stubborn.

“I care about you.” So he’s being stubborn after all. 

It’s not the thing he wants to say. Natasha knows this, has studied her entire life to be able to predict patterns in other people. Clint has always been a wild card, though. When it comes to him, she can never quite get the equation right.

It’s not the thing he wants to say. It’s still brutal and terrible and the worst thing Natasha has ever heard. 

“Well,” she says, voice strategically clipped. She’s wiping blood off of his cheek. Her hands do not shake because she’s better than this, but touching his skin feels different somehow. Something has shifted. 

“I care about you,” he repeats, but he’s laughing now. It sounds almost hysterical, the sound reverberating off of the tiles on the wall. If Natasha were someone else entirely, she would cover her ears with her hands and drown out the sound. 

Instead, Natasha rolls her eyes. “You’re drunk.” 

Clint says, “you think that’s why I’m saying this? Hm?” and it’s then that Natasha knows that he’s aware of the consequences, too. 

“Emotions are like that when you’re inebriated.” 

“God,” he scoffs, “inebriated. You sound so fucking clinical.” 

“Emotions,” she says again. “Come and go.”

Clint grabs Natasha’s hand. For one awful moment she thinks that he’s going to hold it. Rather than that he merely drops it so that it is no longer touching his bloody cheek. Natasha lets out a breath, then wonders briefly why she is so afraid. 

“Right,” Clint agrees. It’s the easiest she’s ever seen him give in to anything. Then: “Love isn’t an emotion, though.”

Natasha laughs, dry and humorless. “You had to say that.” She shakes her head. The tiled floor shines beneath her feet.

“You had to ruin my life,” Clint retorts and, _oh_ , Natasha thinks, _this is what I was afraid of_. She’s acted as many different people throughout her life, played out all sorts of lies, and yet this one irritating person manages to worm their way under her skin. It’s so cliché she wants to scream.

But this night has consequences, and she is here for a reason. “Lift up your arm,” she instructs, sounding indifferent as ever. “You’re still bleeding.”

Clint eyes her with a distaste she has never seen from him before. Not directed towards her. “You don’t get to do that.” 

“What?” She asks, “clean you up? Clint, you’re a mess.”

“You don’t get to put a goddamn bandage over what I just said.” 

Natasha rolls her eyes again, but she’s starting to believe that the action is more of a shield than anything else. Some twisted sort of armor. “Clint-” 

“No,” he says. His voice is so hard that Natasha does not interrupt. “I want you to sit with all that.” 

Clint moves to leave and Natasha does not stop him. He’s limping slightly as he exits but she knows that he will be fine come the morning. Clint always is. 

Natasha waits until she hears Clint’s bedroom door slam shut before getting up. She stands quickly, as though the act of crouching were unbearable instead of something that she is able to do for an infinite length of time. Her steps echo loudly off of the bathroom floor as she collects all of their medical equipment and puts it back in its place. She is meticulous as ever. Clint would ridicule her if he were still here and wasn’t- 

Natasha stops herself. The thought of Clint is bottled up and set under the sink. She is meticulous as ever. 

Natasha finds that she does not sit down once that night.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment and let me know what you think! Also, sorry about that...


End file.
